Private Willard's Grave

Just south of Sacramento is the little town of Franklin (I paid a visit there this weekend). It is a small town, real small, but it has at least one distinction; it is the last resting place of the penultimate surviving member of the Lewis and Clark expedition – one Private Alexander Hamilton Willard. Now perhaps that is not the greatest of distinctions, but understand that Franklyn is a very small place.

Apparently Private Willard was not the best of soldiers – during the early part of the expedition he was caught sleeping on guard duty one night. That offence was in those days an act punishable by death but, fortunately for the Private, he was spared death and given a hundred lashes instead. He made the entire journey to the west coast and back with Lewis and Clark and then, after the expedition, he married, fathered 12 children and, in his 75th year, joined a wagon train and went west again to California. He died in Franklyn at the ripe old age of 86. Quite a life I would imagine.

While the graveyard in Franklin has some quite impressive tombstones, Private Willard’s grave very modest indeed.